How do I stop a dog from barking?

[Themasterandmargaritas]

It's not our dogs, it's the poor dogs next door who are in a kennel all day and let out at night as 'guard' dogs. Ours are also outdoor dogs and don't bark at all, but the neighbour's dogs are driving me crazy with their barking through our mutual fence.

We have a night guard and I was thinking of asking him to use a small hand held garden water spray to spray them when they are barking near the fence.

Would that work? Any other suggestions?

Poor dogs, it's not punishment they need for barking, it's sufficient exersize and stimulation :(

I absolutely agree with you, but that is totally out of my control, that is the way things are done here a lot of the time .

In the meantime I need a good nights sleep.

If the dogs are guard dogs at night, is it your dogs they are barking at? If so, I just wondered if anything can be changed there so they don't have the provocation. If you have a guard and they are barking at him, maybe he doesn't need to patrol the fence adjacent to the dogs - it sounds as though the dogs would alert him if anyone came near!

Otherwise I was going to suggest trying to agree something with the neighbours but if they are deliberately using them as guard dogs it doesn't sound like you would get much joy. . Unless somehow you can agree to jointly patrol the boundary between you?

Water won't hurt them as such but you may find they will be trained to bark more if provoked in any way, so I think trying to remove any provocation if at all possible may be more the way to go.

I think the way forward is a new fence. You are right music they bark at our dogs and at the guard and at the birds and at the car, frankly they are bored stupid and will bark at anything.

The neighbours are away on leave, so when they get back I think I shall have to invite them round for drinks and a dog pow-wow! I wonder if we could even get them to stop locking them up during the day... I feel a lot of diplomacy will be needed.

Maybe worth pointing out to the neighbours that it may be in the neighbour's interests to keep the dogs less bored - if they are barking at anything and everything, neighbours are going to ignore the barking even when there is a real threat on their property. If, however, the dogs had more stimulation in the day they might only bark at a real threat and then neighbours would be alerted...

Good luck!

Just interested to know where you are. Is it South Africa?

Kenya.

My brother lives in South Africa and I was always quite at the way some dogs were treated - but I suppose they were proper guard dogs. I used to insist on taking his dogs out for walks everyday - most people looked at me as though I was mad - and getting them past some gates was very difficult - especially if they had been left open and the ridgebacks would come hurtling out. I have every sympathy as we have an Asian family who live near to us and they leave a Rotty in the backgarden all the time as a guard dog - he barks everytime anyone goes past and howls when ambulances go down the road. Good Luck with your problem. Very jealous of you living in Kenya

Cut its vocal chords